On a cold January 20th, not too far from today, history will be made on the STEPS in Washington DC.
Not just the millions in the USA, but Billions in the world would be watching, with HOPE warming their hearts on that cold wintery day.
The world population is looking up to not just another inauguration, but to turning the page, in the history of our violent riddled world we call home.
I am not sure, if we Americans truly understand the implications,
If you are in the habit of listening to what rest of your brothers and sisters do outside the boundaries of this nation, you would realize that the whole world is cheering for the very first, as aptly immortalized by the magazine with most circulation in Europe, the German "Der Spiegel",WORLD PRESIDENT.
YES, our own Barack Obama !
Kenyans and Irish alike are claiming an ethnic piece of O’Bama .
Yes. let him be a kaleidoscope of the world!
What a change from the world opinion of George Bush.
People, world over, have a dream.
I have a little dream too......
When you think outside the box, people with closed mind, often call it or the idea’s proposers "names".
I confess I do not have answers to any of these complex questions but that should not stop me from thinking. May be lateral thinking or thinking outside the box might help.
The argument that that Israel have a home and Palestinians need one is not accurate in the eyes of the Palestinians because the Israeli home was created recently (60 years is a very short time in world history) taking the home away from the Palestine. At least this is the truth in the minds of the Palestinians (it may or may not be historically accurate).
The end result of the ongoing conflict can be anyone of the following
- Palestinians are wiped out
- Israel is wiped out
- They peacefully co exist in one real estate
- There are two equitable pieces of real estate, one each for the two groups and they are happy neighbors.
- As above but unhappy and or fighting with each other, (unlike India and Pakistan, military wise very disparate unless America or any other arms dealing country arms both countries equally. How about a nuclear Israel (already one) and a nuclear Palestine? Maybe that is deterrence. Isn’t that our claim to hang on to thousands of them?
- Both groups of people are removed from this piece of land and appropriately resettled and this small piece of real estate turned into the LAND OF THE WORLD for all of us humans to use". Yes, certainly a novel idea and later thinking.
Or they continue the present bloody conflict indefinitely!
My understanding, from reading the news reports and opinion polls from rest of the world(not American media) including Israel, Palestine, and Middle East) is that the majority , not the fringe radicals , of the people on all sides(majority of jews/muslims/arabs) and third parties want long lasting peace and an equitable settlement. It is a truism for every one of the ongoing conflict around the world.
Closest to this, that majority has agreed upon over the years, have been a two state policy with return to 1967 lines. This is on record as voted repeatedly in the UN overwhelmingly with usually Israel/USA and one or two other countries voting against.
I honestly think we (majority), in America (people/governments) do not want an equitable settlement. We have our own reasons for that in our egocentric minds. Our mind is set on a super powerful Israel with a weak Palestine or no Palestine at all. We have our own reasons some subtle and others overt. Some racial, xenophobic and religious while some are political and profit making.
More Israeli/Palestine population percentage want peace than us Americans and that make sense because they are the ones on the ground suffering unlike us who are armchair citizens
• Some people are happy to see the last Jew or the Palestinian wiped out from the face of this earth and some among those elitists live here on this site too. (No different from the betters/supporters/profiteers of any other conflict around the world)
• In any conflict, the fight persists because each side becomes so entrenched in their view point; they fail to see the other side at all.
They refuse to even attempt to look at the issue through the eyes of the 'enemy", constantly shouting how self righteous they are and that only their cause is the right one and their fight is the holy one.
Usually religion, god and defending faith is thrown in as the catalyst. Points are fought to the minute detail so that it would be so convenient to blur the bigger picture if not the primary principle that killing is unacceptable.
Killing the enemy becomes the same as protecting your own. The enemy is dehumanized to make killing them so much palatable.
Killing is so glorified that we become each other, evil, in one another’s eyes.
Decades of fighting, generations of killing, but sadly, nothing to show for it.
Nothing has moved an inch.
Excuse that violence is human nature, and that there will always be war and killing, which has been the case since beginning of time, is JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE or sustainable for our species.
"WE ARE RIGHT AND THEY ARE WRONG" rhetoric is not acceptable too
I/P issue
India/ Pakistan and Kashmir (Hindu- Muslim)
oxymoronic never ending "war on terror" and USA (west vs. east, Judeo-Christian vs. Muslim)
Russians and Muslim world (Afgan/Chechnia etc)
class wars all over the world (haves and have nots)
ethnic wars/cleansing in Africa, Eastern and Europe
• In all this there are groups/people/entities that profit and line their pockets just from the endlessness of it all.
In the safety of the cyber world we do our mental masturbation, we take sides, we argue our points and beat the dead horse but it makes no difference on the ground (we know it too) people on either side of the conflict continue to suffer and die. But the orgasmic pleasures from these efforts are rewarding all the same.
We are as pathetic as the poor souls on the ground.
The striking changes that America need to make towards the goal (if that is the true goal of America towards ending this conflict is to be A TRUE AND HONEST BROKER. We have never been that, and as recently as this week the congress voted for unconditional love for Israel and its actions.
The current fight will die down and come up again in future as next, but ever recurring, chapter of the never ending conflict. People on both sides at that time, like always, will dust off the 60 year old arguments and fight verbally while more people die. Almost certainly, if we go by history, the deaths would be a un proportionate number of Palestinians (say 70:1)
I do not have a horse in this race and I think I can be objective like King Solomon, unlike some people here. My only goal in this world is to reduce killing of another human. Every other rationale or argument is only secondary.
I can and will be pained by all the deaths (in my book there is no innocent or justifiable deaths, the life of the Israeli killed by the dumb rockets is as important as those killed by the American made Israeli smart bomb. the lives of the Israeli youth in the military uniform is as precious as the Hamas militant) A Hindu, Muslim, Arab, Israeli, Christian, Buddhist, Tamil, Hutu, tootsie, life among evey life on earth have equal value.
Some People here and elsewhere have sold their souls to the devil while professing their love for their" GOD" by accepting some killing and rejecting others. The only way to purity is rejecting ALL Killings.
So outright rejection of any lateral thinking is just what it is closed mindedness. You might not agree but that’s the way it is.
Hey I might be one of the brown skinned Native Americans! (Wrongly called red skins :).
Do you want me to claim that all of North America is ours? Just like each side in the I/P conflict are doing?
When I talked about resettlement someone brought the comparison that all "later day" Americans should leave. This would come into play if the Native Americans start a violent agitation.
They have been relegated to the reservations with one of the highest rate of suicide, rape, drug and alcoholism, infant mortality, physical morbidity and mortality and lowest per capita. We the country has mostly ignored the near wiping out of them by past genocides. We have thrown the proverbial bone of casinos recently
Yes they certainly have a bone to pick with the white settlers don't they? Or do you question their rights too?
Music and Lyrics courtesy to : by B. Dylan ©19xx)
How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they are forever banned ?
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see/
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky /
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry /
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind
Call me a dreamer and a Utopian idiot....
But Imagine (no, i will not cut and paste John Lennon :))...........
Gandhi, MLK, Mandela, all had dreams. They did not take to arms. Indian subcontinent is free of the British Yolk, South Africa is free of apartheid and we have a bi racial president to be.
I hope O’Bama (the Irish) will be a visionary like Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, Gandhi, MLK and Mandela.
If he, break out from the mould of the past presidents, where they took sides in conflict, and trail blaze new path of being a honest broker, a true statesman, over and about the cacophony of wailing protest from vested interests, he can make some dreams come true!
PEACE